


dream of it.

by nowyoudont



Category: Avengers
Genre: Fear, Other, PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-28
Updated: 2016-06-28
Packaged: 2018-07-18 20:53:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,476
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7330285
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nowyoudont/pseuds/nowyoudont
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>//its dark outside and it hurts to breathe\\</p>
            </blockquote>





	dream of it.

**Author's Note:**

> Hey! Thanks for checking out my work!
> 
> Hope you enjoy!

Chapter Text

1.

He used to dream of it.

Space travel.

He used to think of how vast, how infinite the human mind was, how great the possibility of human invention. How in comparison even those great possibilities dulled next to the vast openness, infinite-ness, awesomeness that was outer space. There were so many things, so many possible outcomes for the variables that human kind was so close to grasping.

Then he’d seen it, before his eyes. Humans had done it. Grasped space travel, walked on the moon, sent rovers to Mars, all of it. They’d done it. They’d attained a small fraction of the previously unattainable. And even that small fraction was enough to give Tony this high, this thrill, this revival of the inventor within him. The visionary.

But it’d all come crashing down that fateful day in New York. He’d seen things he’d never imagined, he’d done things he’d never thought possible.

He’d died.

It was terrifying. And not the terrified feeling he would get when his father would come home early from a business trip and find Tony and whoever he’d picked up going at it like bunnies on the couch, or terrifying like when Obi would give him that look, that disappointed look accompanied by no words at which Tony would cower, knowing that he’d done something wrong and there was nothing he could do to fix it. It was a different kind of terror entirely.

Because for once in his life, Tony was not thinking about himself.

Tony had known, as soon as he locked on to that nuke, as soon as he had JARVIS set that flight pattern that this was it for him. He didn’t need reminding that this was a one way trip. The vast emptiness that had once sparked such wonder in the mechanic before, now did nothing but make him want to scream. Because this wonder-filled, awe-inspiring, endless expanse had produced things Tony could only have ever dreamt about.

Or been woken from sleep in a sweat over.

He’d seen a thousand people fall before creatures he could never have even pictured logically in his brain, he’d fought alongside a god for Christ’s sake! His mind had been opened, just as he had always expected space would do to him. But it was open to not only wonder, but horror as well. Because when these creatures began to rain from the sky and crush them like bugs, the egotist for the first time in his life began to feel very, very small. It was a feeling he very quickly found he didn’t care for and would not like to feel ever again. And in feeling small, everything else in Tony’s life began to feel very large. He found it a bit sad, because he only had one thing that could plausibly scream at him.

Pepper.

Always Pepper, wasn’t it? Damn her. Damn her for being perfect. Damn her for putting up with him! For the shit he’d put her through by this point in their lives, she should have been long gone! But she wasn’t, she was still around, still wiping his ass and fixing his mistakes. What would she do without him? This was a thought that again Tony found he did not like, because when he allowed himself to think about it…

She’d be fine.

She might cry for a short while, may even take a leave of absence for a couple of weeks, but then… she’d be fine. Because what was Tony good for?

It was in that moment, floating in space, feeling his final breath catch in his chest and the light of life begin to flicker, that he realized that in this world he only had one thing. And even that one thing would be just fine without him. He was a problem, a disease, which needed to be right and didn’t care whose necks he stepped on to get there.

He was just as bad as the bastard they were fighting.

He was just as bad as Loki.

And floating there, in that infinite… space, Tony realized how small he was. He had no religion, no hope in life once this one had ended, to comfort him as his vision tinged black at the edges before giving into the darkness.

He was a microscopic speck on the canvas of the universe, whose impression would soon be covered by the brushstroke of a greater artist.

Nothing terrified Tony more than being forgotten.

So it made sense then, after all he’d seen and all he’d done that he might be a bit… jumpy. But what made it particularly annoying was the fact that even the smallest things could make him jump and the teensiest triggers could have him hyperventilating on the floor. Didn’t make it any less emasculating though.

Because of this he didn’t think much of it when for four nights he woke with a start at some miniscule, unidentified noise about his bed room, from which he would quickly recover and return to slumber.

But the fifth night was different, because on the fifth night Tony had indulged in some particularly rich self-loathing, which was the catalyst for him drinking. And drinking. And drinking. Until he was stumbling back to his room, crawling into the bed, and babbling at the ceiling for some time before fitfully passing out. Even in this satiated state however, that small noise returned and woke the drunken billionaire with a start.

“Why the fuck do you keep doing that?” He slurred at no one in particular. He found every morning that it was always the same book pushed from his shelf that made the noise (if he wasn’t so drunk he might have had JARVIS make him a note to move the blasted thing come morning), so he wasn’t really directing the words at an entity so much as an object. Being as inebriated as he was, however, he saw no issue with having a full on conversation with said object. “I mean… every night, you know… ‘s really nece..necessary?” He said, finding his alcohol soaked tongue was having issues forming ‘s’ noises.

“Well finally.” The return of conversation didn’t even seem to faze Tony, who figured it was nothing but another of his hallucinatory friends. “Four nights I come to wake you and you brush me off.” Tony’s taking in the voice now. It’s deep, with only the slightest bit of gravel seeping through the cracks of an otherwise smooth voice. Tony knows that voice. He’s heard it one place many times.

His nightmares.

So as the tall lean god comes into the moon light casting through the thin sheets of Tony’s window, the genius wants to scream, not unlike one of those cheesy horror movies, in retrospect. But he doesn’t. No, he grits his jaw and wills dilating pupils to focus, wishes he hadn’t poured so much scotch down his throat. The burn wasn’t nearly as appetizing anymore.

“Oh don’t look so pathetic.” The voice drawls and it’s mocking him, it has the nerve to mock him. Tony sits up quickly, trying to find a snappy retort in his alcohol muddled brain, but he finds nothing, sitting up silent and stiff in his bed, looking his worst night terror straight in the face and wishing he had a gun. Or a knife. Or even a sharp pencil. Heavy boots thump on the floor in two long strides that close the space between bed and god. “Do however,” And this time the voice is close. The wiry god has bent at the hip, pressed his face in at Tony’s ear, clicked his teeth just to watch the genius tense. Tony can’t help but shudder. He does no other movement, because in this moment… he fears for his life. “Try to remember the favor.” The words are lower than the usual, smoother too. Cool breath ghosts along his ear and Tony can hear Loki’s slightly heavy intake of breath. (He would later take this and Loki’s irregular gait into consideration later, when he was a bit more sober). Loki’s fingers are thin and nimble as they slip up Tony’s shirt and trace along the lines sunken lines of muscle and the raised lines of scars. Again Tony shudders. Then Tony’s ears are popping and a faint green light radiates. The god of mischief is gone.

It is now that Tony begins to cry.

\--

It’s late the next morning, when Tony wakes, with a ringing in his head and a faint remembrance of the last night’s going-ons.

It’s not until he returns to his bed and finds, among the disheveled sheets, blueprints for a prototype of the Mandarin's newest collection of nuclear deterrents and a map of New York with circled targets that Tony begins to remember what happened with a bit more clarity.


End file.
